Jane Harris - Divine

I thought I first came across Jane Harris's work at a conference on abstract painting at Warwick University where an exhibition at The Mead gallery included her work, but I can't find it on her CV so I might be mistaken.

Jane Harris was nominated for the Wollaston prize at the Royal Academy. The work up for consideration was 'Divine' a large ethereal painting described by Andrew Graham Dixon as an ' alternative doily'.


Jane Harris does reveal new motifs which for a while were in danger of becoming a branding logo. Her colour selections are gentle and considered. I enjoy her drawings and watercolours which could easily topple into computer design or crop circle fractal patterning but appear because of the handling, to have organically grown and meandered into being.

She didn't win. The prize went to Yinka Shonibare for a classic car with its wheel broken off and a number plate 'FTSE' with the driver collapsed, dressed in signature Shonibare patterned dress.